irban wrote:Oh and Tuf, ask yourself what difference it would make if Todd Park testified in early December as he requested. Is the intent to score politcal points? Or to figure out how to fix the problem? I think we know the answer to that.

Oh and Irban, ask yourself what difference it would make if Todd Park testified now as the committee requested. Is the intent to avoid further political embarrassment? Or to figure out how to fix the problem? I think we know the answer to that.

As far as Medicaid expansion: http://youtu.be/4F4qzPbcFiAThe federal govt. (who is 17 trillion in the hole), picks up 100% of the tab for a limited time. Then individual states will bear the cost. The governors who refused will look like geniuses soon. As will those who opposed obamacare from the start.

irban wrote:The biggest scandal in all of this are the 24 states that didn't increase Medicare limits, leaving a bunch of people without healthcare. Too poor for the exchanges, to rich for the old Medicare limits. Thanks supreme court.

Yep, sweet N.C. was one of them. They LITERALLY turned down free money from the feds to provide health care to the people of their state. But it's only 300,000 or so here, no big whoop according to the lawmakers. It might be one of the right's biggest wins in trying to make the system look broken, when of course it was THEM who broke it.

and many of the states that won't expand Medicaid also have no state income tax. They are also the states that have the largest disparity between the very poor and the very wealthy. More of the same Protect the rich and at the poors' expense. The same thinking that has destroyed EVERY great empire! When it breaks down to the few very rich and the many very poor, it always ends the same way.

Deny health care to the poor, refuse to feed them, or to give them fair pay or employment. Refuse to negotiate with other political parties or countries who have opposing views is a perfect recipe for disaster, time and time again!

When you spend more on defense than you do on feeding, housing, educating and taking care of your people (IE: healthcare).....you've already lost the war!

tufluk wrote:As far as Medicaid expansion: http://youtu.be/4F4qzPbcFiAThe federal govt. (who is 17 trillion in the hole), picks up 100% of the tab for a limited time. Then individual states will bear the cost. The governors who refused will look like geniuses soon. As will those who opposed obamacare from the start.

So instead we pay for them on the backside, via the high dollar emergency room last resort after letting the ailment fester as long as possible plan. The patient collection agencied into bankruptcy, losing whatever assets they have, more public dollars spent to keep them and their family alive. And the illness that might have been treated more effectively and cheaply at an earlier stage, instead results in disablilty or death, one less taxpayer, one less worker. This stuff is already happening, costing us all billions in one of the least efficient health care systems in the world. I'm sure we'll look back and think these idiots look like a lot of things in a few years, but geniuses won't be one of them.

Irban is absolutely correct! "The states will have to bear the cost!"....they already do! So do I, and so does Tuf! The old adage an ounce of prevention beats a puond of cure....it does, and it also does it cheaper! The most efficient healthcare systems in the world ALL have socialized medicine, does it bother you that the very senators and House Reps. that keep screaming how bad socialized medicine is are all on it? and will be for the rest of their days?

I have seen what the GOP has fell to in recent days...how pitiful! They try to secede from their state because it isn't under GOP rule anymore....not lets get better candidates...or a better platform and battle it out like the system is designed to.....no they want to quit and take their ball and go home! Saw the GOP guy in Texas that pretended to be black to win in a predominately black area....priceless!

I have a suggestion if they want to win elections, why don't they try and act like they care about the country.....not their re-election funds or the promises they made to the rich whack jobs buying them the jobs. As they say in England....SHAME!

I'm always a bit uncomfortable when someone, who is opposed to my party's ideas, gives advice as to how that party could get elected. Seems odd.

But not as odd as a govt., 17 trillion in the hole, saying it's going to subsidize insurance policies. With what?

broke/brōk/adjective: broke1. having completely run out of money."many farmers went broke"synonyms: penniless, moneyless, bankrupt, insolvent, ruined, down-and-out, without a penny to one's name, without a cent, without one red cent, without two pennies to rub together, US Government.

I am a student of politics! and being an independent moderate I don't have a dog in this fight....I'm watching them all! I like a good close political campaign.....always have.

As far as being broke.....we somehow can continue to afford 3 billion a year in aid to Israel, it should be cut to 0! anyone wanting to throw their military power around should have to pay their own military bills! 37 billion a year in foreign aid....why are we paying other countries bills when we can't pay or own? Time to tell everyone else to carry their own weight for a few years.

Funny a GOPer would bring up the 17 trillion $ debt.......the GOP created most of it with 2 unpaid for wars! Before Little Georgie, we had a president who had the US in a SURPLUS situation....what ever happened to that? Oh yeah....Georgie gave it all away! He used an early tax return as a bribe to get elected, so yeah you GOPers should be kinda touchy about the debt that you created and perpetuated!

I am astounded by the GOP....the country is broke, yet they want to spend even more on defense spending....more on home defense, but yet they want taxes lower..Hhhhmmm, and how do they want to accomplish this balancing of the budget? By cutting aid to our poorest citizens and cutting the taxes on the richest citizens? REALLY?

The GOP keeps cutting taxes and revenues, yet they wonder at the fact that the country is broke! Hey....why is the checkbook empty? Maybe the reason is the GOP went to war twice and wrote rubber checks to cover it! There is a price to pay if your going to be the world police.....the only problem is the GOP wants the poor to foot the bill instead of the rich who profit the most by our military stance. You want to be the most protected country!....there's a price to pay, and it is time the rich started paying the freight again....like they did in the generations before. Taxes were WAY higher on the rich back in the 50s....you know what the GOP considers the "good old years".

Bugslayer wrote:Funny a GOPer would bring up the 17 trillion $ debt.......the GOP created most of it with 2 unpaid for wars!

The present executive has been in power now for a full term and then some, so the obvious conclusion is that the current administration either (a) also supports writing bad checks for defense spending, just like the predecessor, or (b) opposes it but is too impotent to stop it from happening.

After witnessing this clusterf%*$ in the execution of the health care rollout, I'd lean toward (b).

Then again, after the credibility lapse in that claim about everyone keeping their health care plan, I'd also find (a) believable.

Either way...not good.

You claim to be an independent moderate, but aren't we independent moderates supposed to hold the current administration accountable at some point?

Bugslayer wrote:Funny a GOPer would bring up the 17 trillion $ debt.......the GOP created most of it with 2 unpaid for wars!

The present executive has been in power now for a full term and then some, so the obvious conclusion is that the current administration either (a) also supports writing bad checks for defense spending, just like the predecessor, or (b) opposes it but is too impotent to stop it from happening.

"Things have gotten so awful that even the awful people can't tell if the other awful people are being awful on purpose in a good, compassionate, progressive awful way, or in the old-fashioned, mocking, whatevershaming awful way, because THEY'RE JUST ALL SO AWFUL."

Bugslayer wrote:Funny a GOPer would bring up the 17 trillion $ debt.......the GOP created most of it with 2 unpaid for wars!

The present executive has been in power now for a full term and then some, so the obvious conclusion is that the current administration either (a) also supports writing bad checks for defense spending, just like the predecessor, or (b) opposes it but is too impotent to stop it from happening.

I AM disappointed in this administration, but the difference is I was ASHAMED of the prior administration! Has Obama done a great job? ...I wouldn't say so, but he hasn't done a poor job, and all things considered it could be far worse! This administration has disappointed me that it hasn't been firmer taking the Israelis in hand, if they want to dance to their own music they can try paying for the band! Why are we so worried over the Iranians possibly having Nuke tech (they don't) when without a doubt the most dangerous, warlike nation in the middle east HAS nuke tech and refuses to admit it....no IAEA over site needed there......funny they are the country screaming about others having secret nuke facilities, but yet imprison any of their citizens honest enough to talk of them!

I am disappointed that this president has faced opposition over ANYTHING he tried to pass, the GOP made it clear their major jobs plan was to make his presidency a 1 term thing.....another fail on their part. The GOP has played every card they could and he still is doing a fair job. Has he fell short of my expectations?...so far, but I still have some hope. The Healthcare website is damn disappointing....but the health plan isn't...just the start-up.

I am a fiscal conservative and a social liberal.....IE a moderate. I am not disappointed in Obama fiscally, he has done a good job with damn little help, digging out of a mire of someone else's creation. He has cut the debt and has the stock market surging, and many people back to work. It is the social liberal in me that is disappointed in Obama! He took too long on gay marriage, he needs to reschedule pot so the states can legalize and dispense at will.....and he needs to attack the military industrial complex far harder, among many things I had hoped he would do.

Since Jimmy Carter helped facilitate the Camp David accords, the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, we have given $$$$$ to both. 3 billion a year to Israel and 1.5 Billion to Egypt.

Israel is "the most dangerous, warlike nation in the middle east"? Maybe if I'd been targeted for extermination in the 1940's and was surrounded by enemies sworn to my destruction, I'd be "prepping" too. (Wait, I AM prepping)

As for the national debt, here is a CBS news report from 2012. Obama's been spending in the red for another year and a half. National debt today is over 17 trillion.

By Mark Knoller / CBS News/ March 19, 2012, 6:55 PM National Debt has increased more under Obama than under Bush

irban wrote:The biggest scandal in all of this are the 24 states that didn't increase Medicare limits, leaving a bunch of people without healthcare. Too poor for the exchanges, to rich for the old Medicare limits. Thanks supreme court.

Yep, sweet N.C. was one of them. They LITERALLY turned down free money from the feds

WTF is"free money"?What does it look like?Where does it come from??? Where does it go?

Only someone on the dole could say that phrase without laughing, and no taxpayer could say it without crying.

Free money??? What about, "Free Bobby?"

Americans told President Obama in 2012, "If you like your popularity, you can keep it." We lied. Ron Fournier